


Never Sleep, Remember to Breathe Deep

by anthologia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Crying, Forced Orgasm, Gang Rape, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Orgasm Denial, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Rape, Rape Aftermath, Shock, Torture, it's just YIKES all the way down, mild Self-harm, mostly hurt so far, oh look we got to the comfort, super-unwanted erections
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 02:55:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7783990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthologia/pseuds/anthologia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(“You can end this at any time. Just tell us what we want to know.”)</p><p>He bites his lips bloody so he doesn’t make a sound, thinks about everyone safe and sound at the Castle. Pidge typing on her computer, Shiro fighting a robot gladiator, Hunk trying out a new spice from the last planet they visited, Lance laughing at his own stupid jokes, Lance accidentally elbowing Keith in his sleep, Lance getting overly-invested in Altean soap opera recordings Pidge found in the Castle systems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Voltron Kink Meme fill (https://voltron-kink.dreamwidth.org/1161.html?thread=43913): "Basically, Keith gets captured by the Galra (could be Zarkon himself but any Galran is fine). They decide to "interrogate" the prisoner using torture (physical and psychological). After they get nothing out of him they decide if pain doesn't work then perhaps pleasure will.
> 
> And I really wanna stress that Keith does not want it but at the same time he's been tortured for weeks and his body gives into it so in a way he enjoys it but he hates himself for it. This continues on for a while, they get more aggressive and sadistic with him each time (not letting him cum, over-stimulating him, marking him, strangling him, the works). And still they get nothing out of him. At this point Keith is living in a daze, only to be jarred out of it when it's announced since he's not cooperating then they're just going to give him as a 'prize' to the strongest prisoners in their fights. So yeah, gang rape ensues after that's over and done with, that's it, he's finally been broken, just as he agrees to tell them whatever they want to know that's when the rest of Team Voltron shows up all Big Damn Heroes style. The one who finds him in the prison is Lance (and any other Paladin of your choosing). So he sees what happened, they never bothered to clean Keith up afterward and it isn't hard to figure out what happened."
> 
> I'll just see myself to the dumpster okay.
> 
> Title from the Mountain Goats' "Beautiful Gas Mask" because when I don't know what to call something, I throw John Darnielle at it until something sticks.

_(“You can end this at any time. Just tell us what we want to know.”)_

The first couple weeks after being captured are a haze in his mind, just one unending pain after another. Certain moments stand out with stark, crystal clarity: being thrown by one of the guards into his cell and landing on an already-shattered arm, getting plunged into freezing water and held there until his face was numb, fruitlessly trying to sleep in a cell for the few, brief hours they give him to rest between sessions. Every few days, they drag him to the druids and have him healed so they can start the process over again.

They ask him questions _(“where are the other Paladins of Voltron? Where are the other Lions?”),_ and he bites his lips bloody so he doesn’t make a sound, thinks about everyone safe and sound at the Castle. Pidge typing on her computer, Shiro fighting a robot gladiator, Hunk trying out a new spice from the last planet they visited, Lance laughing at his own stupid jokes, Lance accidentally elbowing Keith in his sleep, Lance getting overly-invested in Altean soap opera recordings Pidge found in the Castle systems, Lance, _Lance_.

He’s gasping, trying to breathe past broken ribs that threatened to stab into his lungs with each inhale, when someone finally says “ _This isn’t working. Try a different tactic.”_

After the druids heal him up, they leave him alone for several hours with nothing more than a dull ache in his head. It’s practically nothing compared to what he’d been getting used to, but as time passes, the way he feels – changes. His cell goes from too cold to too hot, his skin prickling with the heat. After endless days of pain, he’s suddenly, unbearably turned on, and it’s confusing as hell but he can’t help but welcome anything that doesn’t hurt. After everything that happened, just _touching_ his cock is so good that it’s overwhelming. It shouldn’t have taken him any time at all to come, but when the guards came for him, he’s still lying on his back, panting and stroking himself frantically towards an orgasm that wouldn’t come.

His interrogator’s smile is predatory in a way that sends a shiver down his spine when Keith is dragged in, and in retrospect, he should have realized what that meant. Instead of having his body torn apart, this time he’s brought close to orgasm repeatedly, scraped over the edge of it over and over without ever getting to come. At the end of the day, when he still refuses to tell them what they want to hear, he’s returned to his cell and shackled to the wall so he can’t touch himself.

It happens the next day, and the next. The desperation almost drowns out everything, but he squeezes his eyes and thinks about Lance. There’s nothing noble about his thoughts this time, just increasingly dirty fantasies of Lance sucking his dick, tying him up and fucking him until he’s sobbing from how much he wants to come. Even in Keith’s feverish, confused imagination, Lance won’t let him, but he smiles and tells Keith how much he loves him, and it’s almost as good.

When he’s finally allowed to come, he feels like he’s dying, his mind shattering into millions of pieces, too many to pick up and put back together on his own. They take all his begging from the past few days and throw it in his face, making him come over and over until his voice is practically gone from screaming.

The next time he’s dragged out of his cell, they start the cycle over again.

Eventually, he gets to the point where everything just recedes like the ocean at low tide; still present, but farther away. His body goes pliant and obedient, letting them do whatever they want to it while his mind drifts, untethered. It’s not pleasant, but it’s better than the alternative. The interrogator is angry when he realizes this, slams Keith into a wall so hard that his mind falls back into his body. He’s present, too present, when it’s decided that he’s not much good as a prisoner anymore, that he might as well be put to some new use; present enough to feel an edge of terror, something he thought _(hoped)_ had deserted him entirely.

He’s put back in his cell, and the next time he’s taken out, he’s not taken to the interrogator. The room he’s taken to is occupied, Galra and dozens of varieties of alien that he doesn’t recognize. He’s thrown to the ground, and someone grabs hold of his arm.

He doesn’t remember the rest. He doesn’t want to remember the rest. Eventually, he becomes aware that he’s curled up in the corner of his cell, shaking and shivering like he’s in the middle of a snowstorm even though he doesn’t think he actually feels cold. He’s naked – he hasn’t _not_ been naked for weeks, but for some reason, he feels especially naked now. Maybe it’s because he’s filthy, covered in fluids of various colors that he doesn’t recognize and doesn’t _want_ to recognize.

He knows, suddenly, that if someone comes to his cell right now, he will tell them where Voltron is. He will tell them about the Castle, and Allura and Coran, and Shiro and Hunk and Pidge and _Lance_ , and he will be covered in alien bodily fluids when he does it. When the door to his cell opens, he looks up, dull and defeated, ready to talk to whoever it is.

It’s Lance.

Keith stares, uncomprehending, for what feels like forever. It can’t be Lance. Lance is not here. Lance is in the Castle, Lance is _safe_. He is not standing in Keith’s cell, staring at him with undisguised horror and revulsion while his face drains of color.

“Keith?” he whispers.

Keith shuts his eyes. If he can’t see Lance, then it’s not happening. It’s not happening. _It’s not happening_. Before, he would have given anything to see Lance again, but right now, he thinks he would give anything he has left for this not to be real.

A hand brushes against his cheek, and he flinches back so hard that he bangs his head into the wall behind him. “Sorry!” Lance says quickly. “Sorry, I… I don’t…”

Keith’s eyes open again. Lance is kneeling next to him, and when he sees Keith’s looking at him, he tries to bring the corners of his mouth upwards in a smile, but it’s not very convincing. He just looks queasy.

“You’re…” Lance hesitates before pressing his thumb against Keith’s cheek again and wiping away a streak of something off-white and viscous from under his eye. “We need to get out of here. Are you – do you think you can walk?”

Keith doesn’t answer. He _can’t_ answer, can’t process a question that mundane right now. He just stares until Lance tries that slightly nauseated smile again.

“I’m going to carry you, then.” His hand hovers over Keith’s shoulder. “Let me know if – if I hurt you, okay, Keith? I don’t want to hurt you.”

It does hurt when Lance picks him up, but he doesn’t say anything. He wouldn’t know where to begin, anyway. Lance is awkwardly trying to cradle him close, one arm supporting his back and the other dipped under his legs, but he’s wearing the blue Paladin armor, which is hard and unyielding against Keith’s skin.

“I found Keith,” Lance says, and it takes Keith a moment to realize he’s probably talking to the others over the comms in his helmet. “He’s – “ His voice falters. “He’s hurt. I’m taking him to my Lion.”

“The Red Lion,” Keith says, the words dredging up from somewhere in the recesses of his mind. He’s not even entirely sure why, but he knows that it’s important to say.

“Shiro and Hunk found your Lion. They’re going to bring it to the Castle with tractor beams.” Lance adjusts his hold on Keith slightly, bringing him closer, before he starts walking. Outside Keith’s cell, the ground is dotted with fallen, unconscious Galra, and it gives Keith a certain vicious satisfaction to see them.

Inside Blue, Lance sets him down on the ground gently and grabs the emergency kit they keep in each Lion. Within moments, there’s a moist cloth wiping the mess off his face, and Keith lets out a quiet sigh of relief. It’s not much, but it’s something.

Lance lifts up Keith’s head slightly so he can stuff the pillow he keeps in his Lion for overnight missions under it and then settles the emergency blanket over him. “I can’t really clean you up much more with the stuff here,” Lance says apologetically, and Keith stares resolutely at the ceiling so he doesn’t have to look at Lance’s face. “Are you – I mean, obviously you’re not okay, but are you in pain?”

Like the last time Lance asked him a question about how he was doing, he can’t answer. He doesn’t know how. The answer is so vast that he can’t even imagine where to start.

Lance smooths his hand over Keith’s forehead. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk to me,” he says, “but I need to know you’re not going to go into a coma or something before we get back to the Castle.”

“I’m not in danger,” Keith says.

Lance purses his lips like he’s not sure whether to believe him or not, but eventually looks like he’ll accept it. “Okay. I have to – I gotta go pilot the lion. Do you want something first?”

He wants to not be here. Failing that, he wants to not be c _onscious._ Keith struggles upright and paws blindly at the emergency kit until Lance moves it next to his hand. There’s a little packet of painkillers that they found out from experience are strong enough to knock them out for a few hours, and that’s what he reaches for.

“You sure?” Lance asks him, and Keith stares at him defiantly until Lance sighs and tears the packet open, tipping one of the pills into Keith’s waiting hand. Once he’s swallowed it down, Lance lowers him back down so he’s resting on the pillow again.

The medicine must work incredibly fast, or else he’s just really exhausted (both, probably), because it seems like no time passes at all before his vision is swimming, Lance’s face blurring above him. Keith shuts his eyes and welcomes unconsciousness with open arms as it drops over him.


	2. Chapter 2

Lance is waiting for him when he stumbles out of the healing pod, weak-kneed and dizzy. A pair of arms wrap themselves around him, and it should be warm and familiar but Keith freezes, memories clawing at his brain of being pinned in place so he can’t escape, and struggles away. He still doesn’t have any sense of balance, though, so when Lance lets him go, he falls back against the pod and lands heavily on the ground, disoriented.

“Woah!” Lance kneels in front of him, palms up and kept safely in the air where Keith can see them. “It’s just me, okay, Keith? It’s Lance.”

“Lance,” Keith repeats.

Lance edges his hand a few inches closer. “Can I touch you?”

Yes. No. It’s _Lance_ , there’s no reason to be afraid of Lance touching him, but he still can’t make his voice say _yes_. Keith shies away slightly, half-turns and braces himself against the pod, using it to stand back up.

“ – Okay,” Lance says, forcing a smile that doesn’t really reach his eyes as he brings his hand back to his side. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m – “ Keith stops. He’s still kind of cold from the pod, but aside from that, he feels better than he has in… Since he was here last. “Better.”

“Good. That’s good.” Lance’s gaze flicks towards the door. “Are you hungry? Hunk made you something to eat that’s not food goo. I can get it for you. Or you could come to the kitchen – we figured it’d be easier if it was just me when you woke up, but everyone else wants to see you, too, when you’re ready.”

The thought of being in a room with everyone else lands like a weight on his chest, making it harder to breathe right. “No!” he blurts out quickly, like they’re all going to converge on him if he can’t say it quickly enough. “No, I don’t – I need – “ What does he need? He doesn’t know. He stares at Lance helplessly, like he can give the answer.

“It’s okay,” Lance says gently. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Whenever he’s ready. He’s _not_ ready, he knows that for sure. He wants – he thinks he wants to be alone. His room seems like a good idea, so he takes a tentative step towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Lance keeps his hands to himself, but he looks like he wants to reach out again. “Uh, are you sure you can walk?”

“No,” Keith says absently. His next step isn’t any steadier than his first, but he hasn’t fallen yet. It still doesn’t hurt to move or anything, he’s just… wobbly. “I’m just going to my room.”

“Yeah, okay. I guess – I’m going with you?”

He ignores Lance, who follows a few paces behind, for the moment to concentrate on making it to the door without tripping over himself or anything. As he moves, he starts to feel a little less uncoordinated, even if he still has to reach out a hand for the doorway to steady himself. He can see the hallway clearly from here, bland and smooth and beautiful, and it hits him suddenly that he hadn’t expected to see one of the Castle’s hallways ever again. He’d thought he was going to die on that Galra ship. He’d _hoped_ he was going to die on that ship, just so that it would end.

His fingers are starting to hurt from how hard he’s gripping the door frame. Lance is still keeping a few feet between them, staring at him with helpless worry. “Keith?”

He can’t. He can’t do this. Keith bolts, even though his legs aren’t really ready to cooperate on that kind of movement. He trips, landing heavily on his knees and hands, but he forces himself back up again and keeps going. Lance is behind him somewhere, calling his name; Keith blocks it out and focuses on remembering the path between the cryo room and his room, counting out the turns in his head until he’s skidding through the door. His palm hits the little scanner that tells the door to lock just before he hears Lance slam into it.

Intellectually, he knows that probably Lance wasn’t trying to break the door down or anything, just running too fast to stop in time, but he flinches back from the sound anyway. Lance’s voice comes through next, high and scared: “Keith, sweetheart, open the door? _Please._ ”

Keith shakes his head, even though Lance can’t see it, and backs away from the door. The second the door shut, he started to feel better. Having an entire room, knowing he can lock anyone else out of it, is – a relief. He’s safe in here.

“Look, I don’t – I don’t know what I’m doing here, okay? I _don’t_. I don’t know what’s going through your head, I don’t know what happened to you. I don’t know what – “ Lance’s voice falters. “I don’t know what they did to you. I just want to know you’re okay.”

He doesn’t want to let Lance in. Not now. But he starts talking, because he doesn’t want Lance to be upset, either. “I’m okay.”

Lance laughs faintly, the sound laced with a bitter quality. “No, you’re not. No one expects you to be. Look, what if you unlocked the door and I promised not to come in until you say it’s okay?”

“Not now.” Keith tugs off the bodysuit he was dressed in while he was in the pod, letting it drop to the floor, and replaces it with a pair of boxers. Looking down at it, it occurs to him that someone had to’ve put it on him, and the thought doesn’t settle in his head too well. “Who got me ready for the pod?”

“Me, mostly,” Lance says through the door. Keith can hear a faint thump that he thinks might have been Lance sitting down on the floor outside. “Shiro helped a little.”

Shiro saw him. They both saw – they had to have cleaned him up before they could dress him. Keith suddenly _needs_ to be wearing something, and his gaze falls on a sweatshirt lying on his bed. He practically dives into it, letting the fleece lining settle over his skin, warm and soft and a little too big on him. It’s not his so he’s not sure how it got there but it occurs to him that he might have seen Lance wear it at some point. He must have left it on Keith’s bed at some point – and that one thought, like the stupid hallway, hits him like a freight train. Keith sinks to the floor, fighting uselessly against the sob that rises in his throat because he can’t do this. He c _an’t_. Thinking about these things right now is too huge and overwhelming, and he stupidly wishes he could just be unconscious for it like he was when Lance brought him back to the Castle and just wake up when it’s all over.

“Keith?” Lance sounds like he’s on the verge of crying, too. “What’s going on?”

He wants, suddenly, to _see_ Lance, even if that means having to let him into the room. Unlocking the door is just a matter of pressing his palm against the scanner again; easy, even if he has to force himself to get back up and walk the few feet to the door.

Lance is sitting on the floor like Keith thought, but he jumps to his feet once it opens, a brief look of relief on his face that crumples once he sees Keith. He moves forward like he’s going to hug Keith before freezing awkwardly. “Can I – “

Instead of answering, Keith just launches himself into him. Lance’s hold is gentler this time, less restrictive, even though Keith is squeezing so tight that he might as well be trying to break Lance’s ribs.

“You’re okay,” Lance is saying as he lowers them back down to the floor, “you’re okay, g _od,_ you’re home, you’re safe. I love you so much, Keith, I’m never letting you go again. It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”

He keeps babbling out reassurances like that until Keith stops squeezing quite so tight and eventually ends up curled up with his head in Lance’s lap, cried out and exhausted. He’s pretty sure he’s ruined Lance’s shirt with snot and tears and he does feel vaguely bad about that, but Lance just keeps petting his hair soothingly so he guesses it doesn’t matter that much.

“I don’t want to make you if you don’t want to,” Lance says eventually, “but if you want to talk about what happened, you can.”

He’s too tired to even think about whether he wants Lance to know any more than he already does, but there is something _Keith_ wants to know. “How long?”

“You were missing for a little over a month.”

He shuts his eyes and tries to match that period of time to his memories. It feels simultaneously like it couldn’t have lasted that long and like a month isn’t nearly long enough for everything that happened to him.

“I thought we were going to be too late,” Lance whispers. “I thought we were going to find you and you’d be – “

He wants to help. He wants to reassure Lance, but he’s barely pieced-together himself right now, so instead he reaches out and grasps hold of Lance’s hand. Lance laces their fingers together and squeezes, going quiet.

“We should get you to bed,” he says eventually. “I bet you’re tired.”

Keith hums noncommittally. He’s tired, but he doesn’t want to move himself right now. It’s Lance who makes it happen, pushes and pulls at him with gentle hands until they’re both standing up, an arm wrapping around Keith to keep him that way.

Lying down on his bed feels like heaven. He’d forgotten how comfortable a mattress could be, after spending a month fighting desperately for just a few good hours of sleep curled up on the floor in the corner of his cell.

“Why don’t I hang out here until you go to sleep, and then I’ll go tell the others you woke up?” Lance pulls the blanket up, settling it over Keith, before he starts petting Keith’s hair again, giving his scalp a gentle massage. It all feels amazing, and Keith wants really bad to just shut his eyes and let himself be lulled off to sleep, except.

It feels _too_ good, his body responding to the pleasant sensations with building arousal. Keith is suddenly, profoundly grateful for the blanket covering him up because he can’t cope with Lance noticing what’s happening. Not now. “You should go now.”

Lance frowns. “Are you sure? I don’t want to leave you alone – “

“ _Please_ ,” Keith whispers.

Lance’s fingers pause before withdrawing. “…Okay, I guess. I won’t be gone that long. Uh, don’t lock me out again?”

“I won’t,” he promises immediately, anything so that Lance will go away, and buries his face into the pillow he’s resting on until he hears the soft sounds of the door shutting. Then he sits up and pulls the covers off himself so he can actually see his unwelcome erection.

It occurs to him that there’s nothing stopping him from just masturbating until he comes and it goes away. Absolutely nothing. And the thought is… tempting but also weirdly terrifying, like looking over the edge of a drop he’s about to fly down. He wants to have that, but at the same time, he’s not sure he won’t end up crashed at the bottom.

Instead, he ends up digging his fingernails into his leg instead in the hopes that the pain will offset the arousal somewhat. When that doesn’t work, he relocates to the floor, bringing the blanket down with him, which is just familiarly uncomfortable enough for him to give in to the exhaustion and just sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> If you are interested in my fics and want more, I have an account at syntactition.tumblr.com where I have bits of stories that are currently in the works and other ficlets and stories that haven't made their way to AO3.


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